A New Rune
by aneverfixedmarkk
Summary: Tessa hides in the shadows of the Hall of Accords as Clary demonstrates for the Clave her power to create new runes... Who will Tessa see when the new rune is completed?


**A New Rune**

The girl stood in front of the entirety of the Clave, bold and brass and full of fire.

And though what Clarissa Morgernstern was saying was seemingly impossible, Tessa Gray's own existence had once seemed impossible, too. She watched from the shadows as Maryse Lightwood spoke up in defense of her son, in denfence of Clary. Tessa felt the same knot in her heart tighten, as it always did, when she saw the descendants of the people she had loved most in her life. The Lightwood children had inherited all of Cecily's beauty – all of _Will's _beauty. The black hair the color of the night, the blue eyes like a sea before the storm… At least those things had not died out. Her own children had received her own hair and eyes, and now… with Stephen's death and Celine's suicide… the loss of their child… the Herondale family, _Tessa's _family, was all but gone.

Tessa watched as Patrick Penhallow handed Clary his stele, and waited to see what wonders this young Shadowhunter could create. A new rune? Multiple new runes? Runes to help or to hurt…

But how? How and what had brought on this girl's ability? Tessa knew her own complicated conception, and if this girl was capable of what she said she was, what secrets lay in her own past? She watched as Clary, not looking away from the eyes of the crowd boring into her skull, began to draw.

It took all of ten seconds to draw the rune. Tessa wasn't sure what she'd expected but certainly something more than this. Runes were created by the angels – shouldn't some angelic power come to play a part in their creation? Or perhaps a spell book, in which to record this new rune? Had it always been so simple? Tessa had never heard of Shadowhunters even trying to create new runes. Perhaps the feat seemed impossible only because it had never been tried.

But Tessa was pulled up short. Her thoughts of mechanics, the way Henry once might have, and the reason for things to happen, the way Charlotte would have so meticulously thought out, vanished from her mind as if it had been swept away by a particularly powerful gust of wind. The second Clary's hand pulled the stele away from her skin, what Tessa saw before her changed. It happened in an instant, as if they had been there all along, though she knew they hadn't been. Tessa looked on. Clarissa Morgernstern was gone, and in her stead were two shapes Tessa knew more intimately than her own soul.

At the front steps of the dais stood the only two men Tessa had ever loved. And though she knew it was impossible, she felt herself pulled toward them – her feet moving of their own volition.

She caught herself, having temporarily lost her ability to breathe, upon a column and grasped it, holding on for her life.

Will and Jem were _there_, in the room as plain as day, looking just as they had the day she met them. Will, his black hair curling at his temples and his blue eyes alight with adrenaline. His Shadowhunter gear clung to his body, showing off the years of training and fighting he had endured. She remembered the way he'd looked at her in stunned disbelief after she'd smashed the vase over his head in the Dark House, the way he'd looked when he first told her he loved her when she was still engaged to Jem, his eyes shining with life as he'd said his marriage vows at their wedding ceremony, the tears that streamed down his angled cheeks as he held his firstborn son, James, in his arms…. And the way he'd smiled as she'd clung to him and Jem played his violin as he took his last breath and slipped away from life. Her Will, her husband, her life. His eyes found hers and he smiled that smile alive with mischief and pure, unconcealed love.

And Jem, oh _Jem_. Not Brother Zachariah but her Jem, who spoke through music and never looked cross – a lighthouse in a storm. He was in his simple night shirt and trousers, the clothes he'd been wearing when she burst unceremoniously into his room. His hair and eyes still silver from the yin fen, that steady smile on his lips despite his fragility. How could she remember the things about him the way she did at her age? She'd only spent a summer with Jem when she was eighteen, and yet she could recall his kindness and the purity of his heart like it had been just yesterday. His friendship when she'd first arrived to London, lost and confused about herself and about Will. She remembered the days spent by his side in the library, learning the language of his country and loving the way his lips caressed the words like promises in the dark. Jem. There was nothing in the world she wouldn't do for her Jem, the one she had lost so long ago.

Tears streamed down her face at Tessa looked on, still clinging to her column. It had only been a couple of seconds, and just before the magic of the new rune began to fade, she watched as Jem and Will turned to look at each other, grinning at their reunion, before returning their eyes to her, hands clasped together in the most beautiful display of their combined love they could have given her. Their love not just for her, but for each other. And how could she have loved them any better, had they not loved each other as equally as much?

And then Will and Jem were gone. Clary had returned, and Tessa was alone once again.


End file.
